by Jeff Gulvin
Cheyenne Logan, supervisory special agent with the FBI, had a temporary desk in AS AC Tom Kovalski’s office, on 4th Street, Washington D.C. She used the circular conference table, had a computer linked to the network and stored her paper files in a bank box in one corner. Kovalski did not mind; the office was three times the size of the one he had had at headquarters, less than ten minutes away. The D.C. field office was the flagship and it showed. Logan was breaking in the new terrorism response co-ordinator for the Washington joint terrorism task force, a function she had fulfilled for three years when she and Kovalski were working with the operations unit on Pennsylvania Avenue. Kovalski had been promoted to assistant special agent in charge at the field office, and he had been hoping to leave some of his terrorism responsibilities behind, but that was not to be. The Bureau liked nothing better than experience and much of his remit in domestic ops had followed him to 4th Street. On top of that, when Osama Bin Laden bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he had taken charge of the operation that followed. He looked over at Logan now, on the phone to his ATF counterpart in California, and was glad she was back, if only for a while. He had confidence in Carmen McKensie’s ability, but did not have the time to teach her the ropes himself.
Logan sat at her computer and the ebony sheen of her forehead furrowed into twin horizontal lines. She wore a red two-piece suit and low-heeled shoes, and her gun lay in its shoulder holster across the back of her chair. McKensie was seated on the couch, sifting through papers. Logan glanced at her. ‘Come over here a minute, will you, Carmen?’
At thirty-five, McKensie was slightly older than Logan and had been married to an agent in the Bomb Data Center for three years. Her last posting had been San Diego.
Logan tapped a scarlet-polished fingernail against the computer screen. ‘This just came up on the NCIC. Billy Bob Lafitte, leader of the Pacific Coast Militia, was killed in a car wreck in Hope Heights, Oregon.’ Kovalski had put down the phone and was listening from across his desk. ‘Did you hear that, Tom? Just came over the wire. Lafitte’s dead.’ Logan paused. ‘The brake lines on his Dodge were cut.’ She sat back. ‘That’s two in a week. Pataki in Missouri and now this guy out west.’
Kovalski got up and came over. ‘Were there any other circumstances like we had with Pataki?’
‘Well, it wasn’t yellow fever, but his brakes were tampered with.’ Logan scrolled down the report that had been logged on the National Crime Information Center by a Detective Cameron from the State of Oregon criminal investigation division. ‘Two nights previously a Winchester 30/30 rifle was allegedly stolen from the same truck, which was parked in Lafitte’s yard. The vehicle was locked and he had two guard dogs.’ She paused again. ‘They were poisoned with strychnine.’
Kovalski’s phone was ringing. Mary, his secretary, put her head round the door. ‘Mr Kovalski,’ she said. ‘That reporter’s on the phone again.’
‘Which reporter?’
‘Carl Smylie. The freelance one. He wants to know if we have a comment about the homicide in Oregon.’
Kovalski rolled his eyes to the ceiling and then he smiled. ‘Your call, Carmen.’
McKensie got up. ‘It’ll be a pleasure.’ She picked up the phone and told Smylie that the FBI had no comment to make on the death of Billy Bob Lafitte, which was a state police investigation.
Smylie laughed in her ear. ‘Yeah, right. That’s what your St Louis office said about Daniel Pataki. Of course, yellow fever is rife in that part of Missouri.’ He went on to ask her if she did not think it a little strange that two militia members had turned up dead in as many days, in different parts of the country. ‘Pataki was wanted by the FBI,’ he said. ‘St Louis bank robbery, remember? The word was you couldn’t pin it on him.’
‘That was not the word, Mr Smylie,’ McKensie said. ‘The word was he was on the run. We’d issued a UFAP warrant for him. That’s unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, if you want to print it.’
‘Jeeze, I know what it is, lady. But don’t you think it’s just a bit weird that he wound up dead within a week of you obtaining that warrant?’
‘My opinion is irrelevant, sir. The murder investigation is, at this point, a state police matter.’ She asked him in future to contact the Office of Public and Congressional Affairs and hung up. ‘That guy’s gonna be trouble,’ she said.
‘Carmen,’ Kovalski said. ‘Carl Smylie is the voice of the militia. He’s been trouble for years.’
Logan sat back in her chair and scrolled through the Oregon detective’s crime scene report. ‘Apparently, Lafitte complained to the local sheriff about being harassed by three Asian men wearing grey suits and driving a Chevy Suburban,’ she said. ‘He also claimed that his property was buzzed by a black helicopter.’
‘Same as Pataki before he went AWOL,’ McKensie put in.
‘Pataki was a fugitive,’ Kovalski said.
‘But we didn’t chase him in a helicopter.’
‘No.’ Kovalski shook his head. ‘I don’t think we did. We only got as far as the UFAP. This guy Lafitte could’ve seen anything—National Guard chopper, Game and Fisheries. Goddammit, these black helicopters have been the bane of my life for the past five years.’
Logan stood up then and smoothed down her skirt. ‘I want to fly out to Oregon, Tom. Show a federal face in Hope Heights. Pataki was a hoodlum, but Lafitte was a respectable businessman and a major player in the patriot movement.’
‘Christian Identity follower?’
She made a face. ‘I don’t know. But I would imagine so. We know he was in Vietnam the same time as Louis Beam, and he’s had dealings with the leaders in Idaho. He was vocal at Ruby Ridge and went to the Aryan Nations compound at Hayden Lake when BobCat Reece was guest speaker at their annual congress. Latterly, like the rest of them, he’s tried to become more respectable.’ She broke off. ‘That guy Smylie is right in one way, Tom. There’s something weird going on here.’
Kovalski smiled at her. ‘The old spider sense tingling, is it?’ He made an open-handed gesture. ‘Do whatever you got to, Chey. And take Carmen with you. It’d be nice to have my office back for a while.’
They left him then, Logan packing up her laptop and strapping her gun under her jacket. ‘Are you planning on it being just the two of us, Cheyenne?’ McKensie asked her.
Logan looked back at her. ‘Oh, we’ll let the Portland office know we’re making the trip, but yeah, I figured just you and me, Carmen. Two female Feds in small-town Oregon, right after a militia leader got killed.’ She broke off and smiled. ‘Should be interesting, particularly with the victim being a white supremacist and me being one of the mud people.’
As Kovalski watched them go, his phone was ringing again. ‘ASAC,’ he said when he picked it up.
‘I’ve got a Mr Horowitz, Mr Kovalski. He wants to talk to you about “housekeeping”.’
Kovalski drew in his brows and hunched over the table. ‘Put him through, Mary. And get someone to close my door.’ He sat back again, listened to the click, and then a new voice sounded in his ear. ‘Mr Kovalski.’
‘Mr Horowitz.’ Kovalski swivelled round in the chair so he faced the wall. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s what I can do for you.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Word comes to me that you may have a fly in your ointment.’
Kovalski sat more upright. ‘Go on.’
‘I don’t know much more.’
‘Do we need to meet?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘That’s it? Just a fly in the ointment.’
‘Your ointment, Mr Kovalski. The only other thing I heard was this fly likes to settle on cherry blossom.’
Kovalski put down the phone and sat quietly for a moment. Horowitz was a source in the Israeli Embassy, one that the CIA did not have their hooks into. Now and again he fed information directly to Kovalski, who knew him from his early days as a spycatcher. He had arrested two Israeli Embassy employees on suspicion of spy
ing and got them both convicted. During the course of that investigation he had come across Horowitz, who had proven to be a very reliable source over the intervening years. Now he was a sort of unofficial asset. What Horowitz said, generally turned out to be right. Ointment was a codeword for Washington D.C. and a fly was going to be trouble.
3
LOGAN AND MCKENSIE FLEW to Portland, Oregon, where they were met by an agent from the field office, a probationer who was ex-Marine Corps, with muscles bulging in places Logan did not remember other people having. His name was Stroud and he talked incessantly all the way to the field office. ‘The word is it’s us,’ he said. ‘The G-men.’
‘Asians in black Suburbans.’ Logan leaned her elbow on the back of her seat. ‘It sounds like the Hong Kong troops the UN is supposed to have sneaked into the country.’
McKensie was in the back, listening. Stroud glanced in the rearview mirror. ‘You guys want some company when you go down there?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Logan looked sideways at him. ‘Why, do you think we need it?’
He lifted a palm. ‘Hey, only if you want. The boss’s got no great desire to get involved. If it is murder, then it’s either the sheriff’s dicks or state police CID. They’re welcome to it.’ He unwrapped a sliver of chewing gum and rolled it into a ball. ‘But you know what these assholes are like. They’re gonna love having you two show up, especially as Lafitte’s outfit are Christian Identity and you’re …’ Stroud broke off.
‘Black,’ Logan finished for him. She pushed back her sleeve. ‘And not just a little on the tanned side, either.’
Colour prickled across Stroud’s neck and jaw line, flushing into his cheeks. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘I know you didn’t.’ Logan patted him on the arm. ‘Don’t you worry, Stroud. I’ve been black for a long time now. I can handle the rednecks.’
The special agent in charge of the Portland office briefed them thoroughly on what he knew of Lafitte and his followers, and told them that as far as his office was aware, some of the big names from the militia movement were going to attend the funeral.
‘We know BobCat Reece is coming over from Montana and a few from Hayden Lake. There’s Paul Hannah from Texas. He’s a player too. There’ll be representatives from the NRA and Guns of America. The Pacific Coast Militia is planning some kind of rally on the beach down there. Reece is gonna make some kinda speech. Oh, one other thing you might wanna know. Billy Bob Lafitte—or William as everyone is calling him now—was pretty good friends with the congressman up here. John Rayburn, a Republican.’
Logan thanked him and then drove the rental car to the Holiday Inn on the edge of town. First thing in the morning, they drove south for Hope Heights.
‘Jesus. Look at all the media.’ McKensie pointed through the windshield, as they entered the city limits from the north. Hope Heights: population 1,584.
‘We’re talking small town,’ Logan said. ‘One street. Two bars. Maybe a diner somewhere and an Atkinson’s supermarket.’
She was right. There was one wide street with a log homes building company on one side of the road and a small industrial estate for logging beyond it. After that, it was stores, a diner and a pool bar on the ocean side of the street. There were more stores on the left, then a motel made up of a mixture of log cabins and modern condominium—style units. TV company vans were parked everywhere—everything from the local stations to NBC and CNN.
Logan sucked at her teeth as she swung off the road and into the turning-area for the motel. ‘You know, this is bigger news than I thought it was going to be.’ She parked and sat behind the wheel for a moment. ‘We’re gonna do well to get a room,’ she said, and then turned to McKensie. ‘You go, Carmen. They don’t like black women in this part of the world.’
McKensie grimaced and climbed out of the passenger seat. Logan sat and waited for her, watching the hubbub on the street. It was not warm today, and a vicious wind was blowing in from the west. The only people on the beach were the surfers. The motel looked pretty full and she could see there was a kids’ play area and a path that led to the dunes, where a lookout tower, painted red, dominated the horizon. A couple of people walked past the front of the car and Logan smiled at them.
McKensie came back. ‘We’re in luck,’ she said. ‘They have one cabin free. It was vacated this morning and, as yet, no one from the media’s been in.’
‘Great.’ Logan looked sideways at her. ‘Did you tell them who we were?’
McKensie smiled then. ‘Only after they rented me the room.’
‘Good on you, girlfriend. You’re learning this game fast.’
They dumped their stuff in the cabin and Logan checked her gun, taking it out of the holster and breaking it open. She worked the action, slipped a round into the breech and snapped on the safety catch. Then she slid it back into her holster once more.
‘We need to be careful,’ she said. ‘According to the militia, the United States government has drafted in one hundred thousand Hong Kong troops to round them up and take away their guns, and they’ve just had what they believe to be a government-inspired murder in this town.’ She flared her nostrils slightly. ‘We’re representatives of that government.’ She left her suit jacket on the bed and slipped on a raincoat, which gave her more room under the arms. ‘Let’s go see this Detective Cameron.’
The sheriff’s department had set up a mobile incident room in a trailer on the beach. Vehicles were dotted round it: sheriff’s department 4 x 4s and state police cruisers. Logan and McKensie drove back up Main Street and parked in front of the diner. People thronged the sidewalks—tourists and media people alike. Cameras were everywhere and Logan could smell the tension in the air. The day was bright and overhead the sky was blue, but the wind was blowing and she had a feeling that a storm was just across the horizon.
The door to the incident room stood open and a deputy in uniform, with Maplethorpe written on his name tag, leant against it, a super-sipper of coffee in one hand. His hat was tipped back and a band of sweat lined his face where the sunburn ended. He glanced at McKensie briefly, then looked Logan up and down.
‘What can I do for you?’ He addressed McKensie.
Logan smiled and flashed her shield. ‘Special Agents Logan and McKensie,’ she said. ‘We’d like to talk to the detective in charge, please.’
Maplethorpe looked at her for a long moment, then very deliberately he took the shield and studied it. ‘F-B-I.’ He said it loudly enough for anyone inside the trailer to hear, and within seconds, a portly man with grey, thinning hair filled the doorway. He stared at them, shifting a plug of chewing tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. His gaze lingered on Logan’s very pretty, black face, but it was not lust in his eyes. Ah, Logan thought. We have a militia sympathiser in local law enforcement.
‘Sheriff?’ she said. ‘Agent Logan.’ She offered her hand, moving on to the three steps that led up to the doorway. He took her hand, albeit a little reluctantly. ‘Riggins. Curry County Sheriff,’ he said.
‘Nice to meet you, Sheriff.’
He squinted at her, then spoke to McKensie. ‘You all from Portland?’
‘No. We’re from D.C.,’ Logan answered for her.
‘We didn’t request an FBI presence. This is a state inquiry.’
‘I know, sir. But the circumstances that Detective Cameron logged on the NCIC seem a little on the strange side.’
‘You bet your sweet …’ Riggins broke off and spat tobacco juice into the sand.
Logan smiled at him. ‘Can we talk to Detective Cameron?’
Riggins seemed to think long and hard about that and then he stepped aside. ‘You better come in,’ he said.
Cameron was younger, perhaps thirty, perhaps less, with a certainty that was not arrogance about his features. He stood up and shook hands, then offered them a seat in the cramped surroundings. Riggins leaned in the doorway with his arms folded. ‘Feds, huh?’ Cameron poured them s
ome coffee. ‘If you listen to rumour, you’re not the first who’ve been here.’
‘We never listen to rumour,’ Logan said.
He gestured through the window. ‘Maybe, but other people certainly do. I’ve never seen so many people in such a small town.’ He fished in his wallet for his card. ‘I’m with the state police criminal investigation division.’ Cameron nodded to Riggins. ‘Sheriff Riggins here was a friend of the deceased, so his interest is more than just professional.’
Logan looked over her shoulder. ‘Did you know Mr Lafitte very well, Sheriff?’
‘As well as I knew anyone. Grew up with the man. We’re Oregon born and raised. Only ever moved but one county.’
‘So you were pretty close, then?’
‘Yes, mam.’ Riggins spoke through tight lips, white lines of muscle in his face. ‘Billy Bob, I mean William, called me to his place at three o’clock in the morning, two nights before he died. Somebody’d stolen his rifle from where it hung in his truck. Not only that, but they poisoned his dogs.’ His face was lined and closed, animosity barely veiled in the ice-blue of his eyes.
Logan already knew the answer, but she asked it anyway. ‘The brake lines on his truck were definitely cut?’
Cameron answered her. ‘Our crime scene unit is very good, Logan. The reports aren’t finalised just yet, but the initial analysis suggests some kind of clippers, a sharp pair of pliers, maybe. There are traces of brake fluid in Lafitte’s yard.’
Logan nodded slowly. ‘Can we see Lafitte’s yard?’
Behind her, the sheriff grunted and shifted his feet restlessly. Logan looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Does the idea bother you, Sheriff?’
‘You don’t got no jurisdiction here, lady.’
‘You’re right. I don’t. It’s a request, not an order.’ She looked back at Cameron. ‘Do you have any objections?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’ She stood up and smoothed the creases in her skirt. She looked again at the sheriff. ‘D’you want to come with us?’
They followed Riggins’s 4x4, riding with Cameron in his unmarked car. Logan sat up front and leaned sideways against the door. Cameron was grinning all over his face. ‘You did it on purpose, didn’t you,’ he said suddenly.